Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Disbelief

re: Disbelief
ER — (archived)

I once witnessed the same nighttime Cape Kennedy missile launch (From Tampa) as a good friend of mine. He was new to Florida and had never seen one, I had seen many. The gentleman in question was an experienced police officer, trained to be observant and an accurate witness under pressure. His observations were totally different from mine; he was convinced he had seen a UFO, and he refused to accept my account of the sighting. I was also able (using suggestion) to get him to admit seeing details he couldn't possibly have seen (maneuvers, shapes, surface details and even sounds) which I simply made up. It wasn't until we called the newspaper and verified the exact time of the missile launch that he was forced to admit he had just made it all up.

To be fair to my friend, I don't think I would be able to give credible testimony at a criminal trial of an incident in which I was under great stress, or in danger. He did this as a routine part of his job.

Eyewitness testimony is highly unreliable, and it has nothing to do with the honesty or intelligence of the witness. We simply do not operate efficiently under extreme conditions with which we are totally unfamiliar.
This, and several other similar experiences have convinced me that eyewitness testimony of this nature just cannot be relied on. People make things up they are not even aware of when they see something they've never seen before. I have no doubt I would be just as unreliable in an unfamiliar environment myself.

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